


Final Battle

by Burgie



Category: Star Stable Online
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-28 23:39:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14460339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burgie/pseuds/Burgie
Summary: The Soul Riders gather to perform the Light Ceremony. Unfortunately, the Dark Riders are still hellbent on trying to stop it. Rebecca belongs to Centeris2.





	Final Battle

The news was not surprising, when it came. Dark Core had caught wind of the fact that all four Soul Riders were reunited, and were on their way to stop the ceremony from happening. Fortunately, they hadn’t interrupted the other ceremony, the one that had seen two Soul Riders joined together forever in heart and soul. They also hadn’t interrupted the wedding to make it official for humans, either, which had been generous of them. Though, Alex was still sure that she’d seen a woman in white lurking just outside the wedding pavilion.

The battle, they knew, would be significantly more difficult than initially envisioned. But they’d accepted this when they’d split from the Keepers. That had been Anne’s idea too, her revenge for the Keepers just leaving her in Pandoria for years and then preventing her rescue. And delaying it, multiple times.

Of course, the Keepers had welcomed Anne back with open arms. They’d always known that she would be returned to them, they’d said. They’d never suspected, even for a moment, that she’d been dead. Alex had interrupted Fripp as he’d been speaking.

“That’s bull,” she’d said. Before the silence could become too intense, she’d continued, her rising anger causing the air around her to crackle. “You focused on Justin instead of her. We found her, we almost had her, and then instead of letting us fight? Instead of letting us go through to Pandoria, you made us stay here.” She’d been trembling, absolutely livid in her rage. Better that the rodent should have died than recover from his near-death experience. She couldn’t believe that she’d ever trusted him.

“But Darko’s spell-“ Fripp had interrupted. Alex had cut him off again.

“Held us in place, yes, I know, but you didn’t even try to free us,” Alex had said. “You just left us there because all you cared about was Louisa. And for all the wrong reasons. You didn’t want to protect her, you just didn’t want Dark Core to take your greatest weapon. Because that’s all she is to you.”

“I should strip your powers for this insolence!” Fripp had snarled, the magic around him already swirling. 

“And wait another hundred years for the next Alex to be born? I don’t think you will,” Alex had said. “But you can’t control us anymore.”

“Never again,” Anne had said. Concorde had raised his head in agreement, giving the squirrel a glare.

“Were it up to you, I would have been left to rot in that cage,” Concorde had said. “Though Justin’s information on my whereabouts was vague, it was understandable that he was so confused. He was under a lot of mental pain, not to mention stress.”

“Exactly,” Anne had said, resting her hand on her beloved horse’s neck. “So thank you for your attempts to teach us, but we will not be kept. Just as the reincarnation of Aideen would not be kept.” And, with a flip of her hair that was completely add odds with the steel in her spine and voice, Anne had turned and ridden away on Concorde. The others had followed her, leaving the Secret Stone Circle forever. 

While that split had been huge in meaning, the repercussions had not been entirely massive. The Keepers had not come after the Soul Riders, nor had they stripped them of their powers. Though, that had probably been helped by the fact that the Soul Riders had joined Evergray’s Followers, a group of rogue druids who had split from the Keepers and joined Evergray.

Louisa, the hopeless romantic of the group, had discovered the ceremony for binding two souls together. Too shy to suggest it for herself and Lisa, though, she’d instead showed it to the ‘power couple’ of the group. Evergray had presided over the ceremony, twining the two souls together for all time, just as their souls were joined to their respective horses. In every cycle, because they all knew that there would be many more, the two would find each other. And even once the war was over at last, they would still find each other in every lifetime.

The wedding had happened later, once the Pandorian sickness had been mostly eradicated from Anne’s body. It had been a beautiful day, full of love and happiness and a caught bouquet that had resulted in much cooing and coaxing from Louisa’s friends to hurry up and put a ring on it. But Lisa and Louisa were content to wait until all was peace again, they were in no hurry. They hadn’t been separated for two years, after all, a dimension dividing them.

But now, as the storm clouds gathered in both the metaphorical and literal sense, Alex would bet a lot of money (which she now had, thanks to her marriage to Anne) that Lisa and Louisa were regretting their decision to not marry sooner. They certainly held onto each other’s hands tightly, and kept very close to one another on their horses.

“The end times have come,” Linda murmured, trying to steady Meteor as he shifted beneath her restlessly. 

“Just as the prophecy foretold,” said Lisa.

“And we’re not even halfway through the Light Ceremony,” said Alex. “Shit, this is bad.”

“Well, don’t just stand around fretting,” said Louisa, riding Goldmist at a walk into the middle of the arcane circle that had been drawn. Apparently, the Light Ceremony required the four Soul Riders to stand in the rune circles that denoted their druid Circle, and then concentrate their power towards the middle circle where Louisa would stand. Rebecca had noted that it looked a bit like a summoning circle, and was on standby just in case the worst should happen and they’d summon a monster. Or turn her friend into one.

“So if we did this backwards, would we still need Louisa?” asked Rebecca, suspicion beginning to tinge her words.

“Yes,” said Linda, nodding and pushing up glasses that had fallen down her nose. “Only, instead of boosting her power, we’d be… draining it.”

“I wish that was the real reason why Fripp tried to save me,” said Louisa.

“The original spell would have summoned Aideen to take over your body,” said Linda. “But this one lets you keep your autonomy. You’ll still be you, just… with a lot more power. Enough to take on a god.”

“Or to sing him back to sleep,” said Rebecca.

“Right, yes, sorry,” said Linda, shaking her head. “Years of druid thinking and training is really hard to shake.”

“That’s okay,” said Rebecca, smiling. “I understand. It took the other Followers a while too, but they eventually came around.”

“So if the Generals interrupt this ceremony, will it kill me?” asked Louisa. “Or anyone else?”

“No,” said Linda. “The worst-case scenario is that they find us near the end when we’re all weak and you’re newly strong and have no idea what to do with all that power.”

“So should we wait, then?” asked Alex.

“Yes,” said Anne, turning around to face the oncoming storm with her sword drawn. They’d taken weapons from the secret stash in the Golden Hills, hidden in the fort. Anne’s blade glimmered with golden Sun runes, emanating heat and sheer power. “Let them come. I’ll cut them down where they stand. How dare they interrupt something so important?” Her eyes were like blue fire. Alex grinned, feeling her heart flutter.

“How is my wife more badass than me?” said Alex, the goofiest grin on her face.

“You’ve known this since we started dating, my dear,” said Anne with a smirk and a flip of her hair.

“I know,” said Alex with a happy sigh. “It’s what made me fall in love with you in the first place.” Anne blew her a kiss.

Despite the huge, threatening storm clouds, only four figures rode out of the lashing rain, their cloaks plastered to their bodies. All four of them were on dark horses, though all of the horses looked different- one was a smaller black and dark blue Jorvik Wild, one was a larger black and dark blue Jorvik Wild, one was a black Welsh pony, and the last one was a deep purple colour with a purple mane and tail. The only similarity was that all four horses had flaming hooves and red, glowing eyes. And all four, horses and riders both, looked bloodthirsty despite being soaked to the bone from the rain.

“Give us the sacrifice,” said Sabine, riding Kaahn to stand at the front of the group.

“I’ll never let you have her,” said Lisa, already sparking pink flame to life in her hands.

“Oh? Just like you’d never let us take you?” said Sabine sweetly, fluttering her eyelashes. Lisa growled and flung a fireball at the hateful, red-clad woman. Sabine easily sidestepped it, and the purple-robed woman behind her caught the flame in her hand and gazed at it.

“Your powers have a touch of pink about them,” said the stranger, extinguishing the fire with a hiss in her fist. “Did you perhaps spend too long in Pandoria after you fell in there, Star? How utterly dreadful, I cannot imagine how bad Pandoria must be. How bad it must be to spend a while there. Perhaps you should spend a few decades there.”

“You must be Nihili, then,” said Rebecca. “Is Louisa’s theory correct? Were you in her position once?”

“Well, I never made it to that circle, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Nihili with a snort, her eyes shifting between different colours. She looked very much like what critics would describe as a ‘Mary Sue’, though they all knew that she could and would destroy them if she so wished. “But yes, I was their Chosen One a long time ago. But, fortunately for me and unfortunately for them, my powers came in too early. And I left the Keepers to be with my love.”

“How romantic,” said Anne, though there was no feeling in it.

“But let’s not waste time with idle chit chat,” said Nihili. “We have a ceremony to obstruct.”

“Why do you want to?” asked Rebecca. Nihili groaned, annoyed at being stopped again.

“Why wouldn’t we?” asked Nihili. “Why do we need a reason for anything?”

“I’m just asking because we want to help Garnok,” said Rebecca. “Send him back to sleep. We don’t want to kill him or imprison him.”

“Oh yes, send him to sleep in that prison, that’s very nice of you,” Nihili snapped, her eyes quite literally blazing.

“Just until we figure out how to send him home,” said Rebecca. “I promise.”

“Sorry if I don’t believe promises given by the enemy,” said Nihili, sparking a spell to life in her hand. She flung it, aiming straight for Rebecca, but a blade came up between them and deflected the shot, sending it back into the wilderness that surrounded them.

“Alright then, be that way,” said Anne. Her sword glowed with power as she sent more of her power into it, and the blade gleamed as though it was in the sun as she swung it through the air towards the nearest General.

It was a good thing that the ceremony hadn’t started yet, because the circle broke up as the battle was joined on both sides. Lisa and Anne fought fiercely, Lisa defending her girlfriend while Anne just wanted all of this to end. Concorde, as a result of his trials at the hands of Anwir, had grown so much stronger, his hooves leaving more than just bruises on whatever he hit. Ribs cracked and blood flowed as he slammed his hooves into the side of Stalker. The large horse squealed in pain as he fell, almost crushing his rider beneath him. Katja stood, but it wasn’t just anger in her eyes.

“You stole everything from me!” Katja screamed, flinging a powerful illusion at the circle. A beam of moonlight pierced it, striking Katja in the forehead and sending her reeling back clutching her head.

“Newsflash, bitch, I was never yours to begin with,” said Alex. Soul Strike hit Katja in the heart, and her eyes never left Alex’s until she vanished. The hurt and betrayal in them would have brought anyone to tears. But not Alex. She had a battle to fight.

As battles went, it wasn’t exactly earth-shattering. But Anne’s new sword helped to turn the tide. In the past, the Sun Soul Rider had fought by sending the enemies to other dimensions. But Anne didn’t want to just make them go away for a while. Even though she knew that the Generals would revive eventually, there was just something so satisfying about seeing her old foe die by her blade.

Nihili was, unsurprisingly, the most difficult to kill. But as a result, Sabine was also difficult to kill because Nihili protected her. Alex could understand that, but she could see that her wife could more than defend herself. But they finally managed it when Alex opened a gaping wound in the earth and sent Nihili leaping into it after her girlfriend.

It was a bloodied and beaten group that returned to their circles.

“Are you sure that we should still go ahead with this?” asked Louisa as she once more took her place in the middle.

“Oh, don’t worry, I put in a failsafe to stop the spell if we got too weak,” said Alex. “Nobody else is going to die today.”

“And if we stop the spell before it’s complete?” asked Louisa.

“Well, try not to sing until we can complete it and then Rebecca can take you to go visit Garnok,” said Alex. Louisa laughed, though she still wasn’t sure what to expect as she stood in the circle and waited for the ceremony to begin.


End file.
